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The International Institute of Telecommunications (ITT) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to building a robust telecommunications industry through knowledge exchange and creation among its 70 member companies. The IIT was founded in 1999 by the Canadian telecommunications industry with financial support from the Government of Quebec.
In December 2003, the IIT-Research unit (IIT-R) was created. This new not-for-profit agency is an industrial consortium committed to pre-competitive research in wireline and wireless telecommunications in support of the telecom industry and related fields like health and transportation.
In the same year, IIT signed an agreement with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva making the IIT a preferred partner to support its centres of excellence for information and communication technologies (ICT) training and consulting services in developing countries.
One of the key factors in the success of the IIT and IIT–R is their mutual ability to capitalize on the power of networks and their members. The two organizations help foster collaboration between players in the telecommunications technology industry and related sectors like health and transportation. They attract large national and international companies, small businesses, venture capital firms, national and international research institutes, and industrial associations.
The IIT and IIT-R focus on the basic needs of the ICT industry and sectors that use information and communication technologies and offer a range of complementary services designed to meet those needs, thus fostering social, technological and economic development. As a training centre for the industry, providing state-of-the-art consulting services in telecommunications/ICTs, IIT also offers essential support to innovative SMEs by helping them with the critical steps involved in marketing and funding. IIT-R, on the other hand, is called upon to play a major research and development (R&D) role for both large organizations and SMEs.
What sets the ITT and IIT-R clearly apart from similar international organizations is their one-of-a-kind $50-million laboratory. The laboratory is the only true non-commercial multi-vendor, multi-standard and multi-site network open to the telecommunications industry and innovative small businesses in the information technology industry. The technological environment includes the only multi-standard (CDMA2000 and WCDMA) third-generation (3G) wireless network in operation today. The laboratory is a leading site for the development, testing, validation, and enhancement of technological solutions.
IIT-R -- Pre-competitive Research in Telehealth
Owing to the efforts of health professionals and provincial health services authorities, the main obstacles to the regular use of telehealth services are now a thing of the past in Quebec. Bill 83 and the work of the Commission d’Accès à l’Information (Access to Information Board) were important milestones reached in 2005.
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Canada Health Infoway Inc., an independent, not-for-profit organization comprised of Canada's 14 federal, provincial, and territorial Deputy Ministers of Health, has a $150-million investment program for the implementation of telehealth solutions in all governments by December 31, 2009. Infoway invests with public sector partners across Canada to implement and reuse compatible health information systems that support a safer, more efficient healthcare system.
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Telecommunications technologies, wireline and wireless alike, render distance meaningless, making it possible to support such medical services as consultation, monitoring, diagnosis, intervention, treatment and assistance, as well as training, education, and research. The supply of and demand for telehealth services are therefore expected to grow in the decades ahead.
An overview of the provincial, national, and international situation shows a gradual trend in the development and marketing of mobile telehealth services and solutions. Consumers can already subscribe to a variety of services that can be accessed anywhere any time, including vital signs monitoring, medication and dosage reminders, and nutrition assessment.
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These services use various wireless communications technologies, some of them controlled by the user through WiFi® and Bluetooth® technologies, others requiring network infrastructures like second- and third-generation wide-area cellular networks, metro networks, and local Hot Spot wireless networks normally operated by service providers. Wireless technologies are a definite asset when it comes to improving health services, but it is imperative that they provide appropriate quality of service (QoS) in response to such implicit requirements as the privacy, security, safety, robustness, reliability, availability, and interoperability of solutions and related technologies.
IIT-R has developed a pre-competitive research program in the area of mobile telehealth services called Mobile Health (M-Health). Innovative research projects and experimental development initiatives carried out for members of the consortium or businesses and organizations in the public and parapublic sectors will be targeted by the M-Health initiative.
IIT-R – Mobile Emergency Services
IIT-R’s work in the field of telehealth is aimed at showcasing the benefits of wireless technologies for mobile emergency services and services involving the contextual monitoring of physiological and cognitive behaviours, which are based on the application of concepts of user profiles and biomedical and telecommunications technologies used to provide services.
In the area of mobile emergency services, the focus is on effective, optimal, robust, safe, reliable, and secure use of 3G wireless network technologies like Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) and CDMA2000 and technologies better known by the brand names WiFi and Bluetooth.
Real-time capture and communication of vital signs, two-way voice and video communication between ambulance attendants and hospital emergency rooms, and access to and input of data in the electronic health records of persons being treated by ambulance attendants are critical elements likely to significantly improve service quality, reduce on-site intervention time, and minimize medical errors, with a lower morbidity rate as the overall outcome.
The focal point of work in the area of remote monitoring of physiological and cognitive behaviour is smart contextual coordination of a network of wireless mobile sensors built into medical devices that can read and transmit vital signs like heart action, blood oxygen level, blood pressure, pulse, temperature and blood sugar, and devices used to measure the mobility and geospatial location of the individual.
The captured data can be sent to a monitoring centre in real time through a public cellular network or stored locally for future reference if network or technological conditions are such that transmission which meets the requirements set out in the various profiles cannot be assured.
Finally, depending on the context, alarms and messages allow the user to obtain information about the status of the medical devices, access devices and networks, and the type of intervention to be started or completed in the event physiological, cognitive or technological irregularities are observed.
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The innovative nature of IIT-R research initiatives ensures:
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end-to-end quality of service governed by compliance with static and dynamic parameters specific to the service to be provided;
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effective and efficient management of bandwidth and network capacity and the related technologies used;
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safe, secure voice communication and transmission of multimedia and clinical data;
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interconnection and interoperability between different types of network technologies;
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smart adaptation of modes and behaviours of mobile telehealth services based on such contextual factors as location, user mobility, status of medical devices and access devices (e.g., notepad, digital slate, personal digital assistant (PDA), smartphone and advance mobile telephone).
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IIT-R uses its unique resources and an approach of staying in tune with the industry and the needs of end users to produce pre-competitive research results that enable partners and contributors to market products and services more quickly. For further information about the IIT and IIT-R, go to the Web site www.iitelecom.com.
Author: Jérôme Pesant,
Strategist
International Institute of Telecommunications–Research
jerome.pesant@iitelecom.com
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